Out of curiosity, how did you measure out the yeast for the sponge and the final dough? You previously said that you would make more dough and that would handle the issue of measuring out minuscule amounts of yeast.

Peter

Yeah, but i just try to measuring it out without with my eyes cuz just dont want to waste too much flour tho....

After looking over the last dough formulation you posted, actually several times, I could not see anything fundamentally wrong with it except that the hydration seemed high for a home oven application and I wondered how you would measure out the minuscule amounts of yeast. I have made doughs with trivial amounts of yeast many times and I have had to use a set of mini measuring spoons such as shown at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5583.msg47264.html#msg47264. For your single dough ball, the total formula ADY comes to about 5/64ths of a teaspoon, or a bit over 5 "drops". The ADY for the sponge comes to a bit less than 3 1/2 drops, and the ADY for the final mix comes to a bit more than 1 1/2 drops.

Your single dough ball weight of 6.91 ounces, when used to make a 10" pizza, translates to a thickness factor of 6.91/(3.14159 x 5 x 5) = 0.08798. That corresponds to a typical thickness factor that is used to make a New York style pizza. I assume that Pizzeria Mozza makes 10" pizzas and you were trying to do the same. Is that correct?

My best guess is that your oven and the dough formulation are not properly matched. It is also not axiomatic that using a very high hydration value will always translate into an above average oven spring with a light, open and airy interior crumb and a crispy exterior. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, a very high hydration dough does not do especially well in my home electric oven. A good example of what I had in mind when I made that comment can be seen in Reply 31 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7745.msg69521.html#msg69521. You can see another example at Reply 3 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8476.msg73691.html#msg73691. It can take a lot of heat to "lift" the very highly hydrated dough so that you get the amount of steam needed to produce a really good oven spring. My oven in its unmodified form apparently falls short in that capability. Also, if you decide to let the pizza bake longer, you will usually end up with a dryer crust that can be quite chewy and even cracker-like in parts. That may also help explain why you got good crust coloration, through caramelization and Maillard reactions.

In your case, you might try using a lower total formula hydration and convert the dough formulation to a new sponge format. You might also want to either invest in a set of mini measuring spoons or else make a larger dough batch such that you can use normal measuring spoons to measure out the ADY. In that case, you should use only a small amount of the sponge water to rehydrate the ADY at around 105 degrees F, for about 10 minutes.

If you proceed along the above lines, I hope that you will come back and let us know how things turn out.

After looking over the last dough formulation you posted, actually several times, I could not see anything fundamentally wrong with it except that the hydration seemed high for a home oven application and I wondered how you would measure out the minuscule amounts of yeast. I have made doughs with trivial amounts of yeast many times and I have had to use a set of mini measuring spoons such as shown at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5583.msg47264.html#msg47264. For your single dough ball, the total formula ADY comes to about 5/64ths of a teaspoon, or a bit over 5 "drops". The ADY for the sponge comes to a bit less than 3 1/2 drops, and the ADY for the final mix comes to a bit more than 1 1/2 drops.

Your single dough ball weight of 6.91 ounces, when used to make a 10" pizza, translates to a thickness factor of 6.91/(3.14159 x 5 x 5) = 0.08798. That corresponds to a typical thickness factor that is used to make a New York style pizza. I assume that Pizzeria Mozza makes 10" pizzas and you were trying to do the same. Is that correct?

My best guess is that your oven and the dough formulation are not properly matched. It is also not axiomatic that using a very high hydration value will always translate into an above average oven spring with a light, open and airy interior crumb and a crispy exterior. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, a very high hydration dough does not do especially well in my home electric oven. A good example of what I had in mind when I made that comment can be seen in Reply 31 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7745.msg69521.html#msg69521. You can see another example at Reply 3 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8476.msg73691.html#msg73691. It can take a lot of heat to "lift" the very highly hydrated dough so that you get the amount of steam needed to produce a really good oven spring. My oven in its unmodified form apparently falls short in that capability. Also, if you decide to let the pizza bake longer, you will usually end up with a dryer crust that can be quite chewy and even cracker-like in parts. That may also help explain why you got good crust coloration, through caramelization and Maillard reactions.

In your case, you might try using a lower total formula hydration and convert the dough formulation to a new sponge format. You might also want to either invest in a set of mini measuring spoons or else make a larger dough batch such that you can use normal measuring spoons to measure out the ADY. In that case, you should use only a small amount of the sponge water to rehydrate the ADY at around 105 degrees F, for about 10 minutes.

If you proceed along the above lines, I hope that you will come back and let us know how things turn out.

Peter

But i would use some flour to fix it until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, I would say 4-5 teaspoon of flour.

Thanks for your reply.If I make a 30-40% sponge based on total water weight and let it sit for 4-5 hours at 80F, plus a 72 hours cold rise, my question is, will that creats a lot od acid and tighten up the gluten?

At this point, I don't think that the problem is too much acid production and strengthening of the dough. Consequently, I don't see why you should go from a 50% sponge (as a percent of the total formula water) to 10%. I would rather try a lower hydration and see how that works in your oven before modifying the dough formulation. If you change too many things at one time you will not be able to isolate their respective effects on the dough and pizza.

BTW, is the recipe you last posted an authentic Pizzeria Mozza recipe or are you taking the recipe that Norma referenced, or one similar to it that you found on the Internet or elsewhere, and trying to come up with a preferment version to emulate what Pizzeria Mozza does?

Is it over ferment? the dough received a 1 hour room temp bulk rise with one fold and then a 72 hours cold rise. the dough got a big bubble at day 2 (72 hours rise)

Scott,

Sometimes a bubble will form in a weak spot in the dough. If the rest of the dough is firm to the touch, and there isn't a large profusion of bubbles at the sides and bottom of the storage container indicating an advanced stage of fermentation, the bubble shouldn't be a problem, and you can pinch it shut.

You can see the same bubble phenomenon for one of my pizza doughs, at Reply 29 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3985.msg36081.html#msg36081. That was after about 15 days of cold fermentation, when I decided to use the dough to make a pizza. My recollection is that the dough might have held out a bit longer because the dough outside of the bubble was still firm to the touch.

Scott - Very impressive. I think you got amazing results and oven spring, considering the low temperature you cooked it at. You got the tenderness you were after - just get your stone hotter the next time and I think you will be even more pleased. Great job. This has been an interesting thread to follow.

I agree, the pizza looks good from here. To get better spring, allow the prebaked dough to proof up more and load it on a hotter stone.

To get the stone temp up, preheat the oven and then place the stone closer to the heating element to get the temps above where you want to load the pizza. Once you've hit that temp, move the stone back to the level in the oven that you want to bake at. Now you have a preheated hot oven, with a superhot stone. The temp of the stone will gradually decrease while you stretch the skin and top the pie. When you are ready to load, the stone temp should still be higher.

I have also baked the pizza initially closer to the heating element at a high stone temp for a few minutes and then moved the entire stone with pizza further away to finish the bake. Of course every oven is different but I just wanted to give you a few ideas you can try.

And of course wear welding gloves and becareful when handling hot pizza stones.

I agree with the others. The pizza looks good. At some point, you might increase the percent of poolish/sponge and gradually increase the hydration. With a hotter stone, as John and Chau mentioned, I think you should get closer to the objective you have set for yourself.

Scott - Very impressive. I think you got amazing results and oven spring, considering the low temperature you cooked it at. You got the tenderness you were after - just get your stone hotter the next time and I think you will be even more pleased. Great job. This has been an interesting thread to follow.

John

I will be cooking another pie tonight with much higher temp for sure. Will post the result right after.